Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment.
Computer systems typically include a number of components that generate waste heat. Such components include printed circuit boards, mass storage devices, power supplies, and processors. For example, some computers with multiple processors may generate 250 watts of waste heat. Some known computer systems include a plurality of such larger, multiple-processor computers that are configured into rack-mounted components, and then are subsequently positioned within a rack system. Some known rack systems include 40 such rack-mounted components and such rack systems will therefore generate as much as 10 kilowatts of waste heat. Moreover, some known data centers include a plurality of such rack systems.
In many server designs, the arrangement of the hard disk drives, circuit board assemblies, power supplies, and other components leaves a substantial amount of wasted space in the rack. This wasted space, especially when multiplied over many servers in a rack, may result in inadequate computing or storage capacity for a system. Moreover, in some rack systems, the density of computing devices achieved in a rack may be too low to utilize all of the resources available within the rack, such as data ports, electrical power, or cooling capacity.
In many server designs, each server has a fixed amount of computing capacity (for example, a fixed number of CPUs) and a fixed amount data storage capacity. In rack systems using such server designs, a computing system may not have the optimum mix of computing and data storage resources for a particular application. For example, a computing system may have a relative excess of compute capacity relative to data storage capacity, or vice versa.
Hard disk drives include motors and electronic components that generate heat. Some or all of this heat must be removed from the hard disk drives to maintain continuous operation of a server. The amount of heat generated by the hard disk drives within a data room may be substantial, especially if all of the hard disk drives are fully powered up at all times.
Electrical systems in racks consume resources such as electrical power, cooling, and network data exchange capacity. In a typical data center, each rack may have a limited amount of each resource available. If the electrical systems in a particular rack require more of a resource than is available to the rack, an overload may occur. For example, if too many electrical loads are plugged into a rack power distribution system, the power distribution system may fail (for example, a circuit breaker may trip) due to an overload.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.